Due to overwhelming interest, Artsworld Presentations is delighted to announce some of the dates on the 2007-2008 tour of St Petersburg Ballet Theatre. More news will follow as later dates are concluded

The talented young company from St Petersburg is acknowledged as one of the few genuine Russian companies visiting Great Britain and Ireland. The company of 100 artists including a 38-piece orchestra celebrated its twelfth anniversary last November. Almost 100,000 people bought tickets during their last tour and witnessed the gorgeous productions of this dazzling young company with its world class Prima Ballerina Irina Kolesnikova and excellent Principals, including some fine young dancers who joined SPBT last year.

The company is delighted to present the eternal festive season favourites - the Tchaikovsky trilogy Nutcracker, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, as well as some performances of ‘Stars of SPBT Celebration Gala’ which received rave reviews from the few performances introduced on the last tour. The Gala programme includes some of classical ballet’s greatest highlights including the popular one-act ballet Chopiniana,; Paquita, a witty Harlequinade and the Dying Swan.

On the forthcoming tour SPBT makes a debut appearance in Cardiff at the magnificent new Wales Millennium Centre; a debut appearance at the Theatre Champs Elysees in Paris, and return visits to some of their favourite UK theatres including the beautiful and soon to be refurbished Norwich Theatre Royal where tickets are already on sale starting at £6.

Warning: review written with nasty head cold. Memory may well be affected...

The St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre ended their 2007-08 UK tour with a single performance of "Swan Lake" on the Edinburgh Festival Theatre stage. Led by their prima ballerina, Irina Kolesnikova, the company gave the Edinburgh audiences a solid, if not entirely inspired looking performance of the classic ballet.

The production, which the company has alternated with a number of other full-length productions on tour, is heavily based on the Petipa and Ivanov choroegraphy with revisions credited to Konstantin Sergeev. With refreshingly lush sets (Smeyen Pastukh) and costumes (Galina Solovieva), it's a visually pleasing ballet, but a number of odd staging and tempo choices and a lackluster orchestra, it made for a less than satisfying evening.

The ballet itself is stripped down in all but length (an overly long 3 and a bit hours), concessions necessary for a busy touring schedule. There's no Benno, surprisingly little mime and a slightly sparse array of courtesans at Siegfried's party. Though Vyacheslav Sunegin's jester veers towards the annoying side of cute, Sunegin was by far the technical and artistic stand-out among the men, if not the whole cast. A dancer is the true demi-caractare mold, Sunegin not only was outstanding in the bravura sections, but full of precision. Unlike Pavel Kholoimenko's poor daft tutor, who was all caricature and no character, Sunegin's jester had personality.

And it was personality that seemed to be missing from this performance. The dancers, with very few exceptions had rock solid technique, but the production looked tired as if it the dancers had done it one too many times. The dancing was there, the heart was not, and the orchestra didn't help. A few off notes aside, the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre Orchestra played competently, but the live quartet for the La La La Human Steps the previous night had far more energy and passion than theis full orchestra. Tchaikovsky's score has some of the most memorable musical moments in classic ballet, but they didn't sing tonight.

What did sing was the corps – in true Russian fashion, they truly danced as one. Given that La La La Human Steps performed the previous evening and the theatre has no large rehearsal room, the dancers must barely have had time to a very fast spacing run through. Yet, bar one or two obvious moments, both the group dances in Act 1 Scene 1 and the swan corps sections were in perfect harmony. The womens' arms rose and sank, a flock flying together. It was a shame however that the first scene at the lake and later scenes were marred by a tempo that could only be described as painfully slow. I also did not recognize much of the music in the final act – whether because this version used very different music or because it's music that has been excised from the versions I've previously seen (or whether my cold is messing with my memory).

The least inspiring part of the ballet, I found, were the two leads. Kolesnikova has no shortage of technique, but the overly slow tempos took the electricity out of her pas de deuxs with Oleg Kharyutkin. She also fell back on some of the worst of the 'milk the applause' habits, including her first entrance in which she struck a sustainted arabesque which looked as utterly out place as the stretched out music sounded. I was much more convinced by her deliciously evil Odile than her nicely danced, but rather un-swan feeling Odette. Kharyutkin was a superb partner, with not a finger out of place in the pas de deuxs. However, his solos betrayed tiredness, and his second act (ballroom scene) solos looked watered down and the steps sloppily finished. He's an elegantly proportioned dancer with beautiful stretch, and I strongly suspect that his performance was a reflection of the long tour, not his lack of technique.

Happy ending aside (I find it much more moving when Siegried has to pay a price for his betrayal), where the production lost momentum for me was the pivotal Siegfried-Odile pas de deux. Each section of the pas de deux was split by very, very long silences whilst one wondered when the other dancer would re-appear. It looked odd, but worse, completely drained the pas de deux of any narrative power. It wasn't a seduction, but a series of solos by dancers who were paying more attention to the audience than to each other. Kolesnikova whipped off the 32 fouettes, counting double rotations, but with much travel to the front of the stage and (at least from above) less than elegant technique. By the end, there had been so many gaps in the action, that there was no electricity. I've seen pas de deux that had much less technical pizazz, but much more emotional power. Credit to Dymchik Saykeev's for imbuing his Rothbart with power, despite a lack of height advantage and the seemingly required silly looking costume. A big prize for a costume designer who can actually make Rothbart look believable – as if any Queen is going to let a face-painted and feathered stranger into her castle, let alone let sit on her throne!

Some like the happy ending, but to me it causes the ballet to fizzle out. That aside, this was a suprisingly un-fullfilling version of "Swan Lake". The dancers don't lack in talent, nor do the sets lack in lushness or production in cohesion. I wish I could have seen the production a few months ago when the dancers were fresh, for it might have made quite a difference. With a few tweaks here and there to improve the flow, an infusion of energy, and restore tempos, this could go from simply solid touring production to something more special.

By courtesans, I mean the visitors who appear in the first act scene and the people in the ballroom during his birthday celebrations. Who are to some extent - more in the third act - members of the court. No medieval prince would be inviting commoners to a formal event.

Usually the corps in the first act are supposed to be friends and servants/locals, but the costuming in this production suggested at a higher social level. Didn't look like peasants to me.

By courtesans, I mean the visitors who appear in the first act scene and the people in the ballroom during his birthday celebrations... members of the court. No medieval prince would be inviting commoners to a formal event.Kate

Maybe you mean courtiers?
My dictionary defines courtesan as prostitute; or lewd woman orig. woman of the court [but not of a sovereign's court].

Kate, this is an interesting review. I have not, to date, seen Kolesnikova dance in St. P, so I was intrigued to hear your impressions. To be honest I presumed from all the fanfare (nearly life-size posters of her in the main metro stations with her name in giant letters) that she was a name to be reckoned with. Now however I'm wondering why they promote her so much if the impression she left was so weak. My best guess is this is a tourist-oriented troupe that uses its name to garner more of an (uninformed?) audience than might otherwise be the case. Lots of tourists who flock to the city and who are not educated balletomanes will go to see *any* ballet in the city, presuming it is "The Troupe" to see. Likewise, many of my relatives in California exclaim when they see the name of a Russian ballet troupe visiting the area, presuming that it is the Kirov! I'm glad we have a means to hopefully make clear the differences.

The slow tempo sounds like Kolesnikova's preference; but even the Kirov has the happy ending version. I'm used to it now, but it implies less Siegfried's betrayal and more Odile's great deceit... how conniving women can be especially when it comes to capturing a man, whether he has courtesans or not .

I think Kolesnikova is quite talented, but this "Swan Lake" wasn't a great vehicle for her talents. She had no problem with the choreography, and given more rest and rehearsal, I think she would have had far fewer issues with the fouettes. A lesser dancer would have lost control far earlier and never been able to finish it all off with a multiple.

The corps was excellent, but it was the very end of a four month tour and it showed. There just was no real spark (other than the jester) - the dancing, for the most part, was of fine quality, but the dancer seemed to be going through the motions. Same for the orchestra. And she seems to have been allowed to develop mannerisms that a good coach would not have allowed her to get away with.

I wonder also if Kolesnikova's talents have not been best nurtured in a touring company where she's become the unquestioned prima ballerina (a whole page of the program was given to advertisement of her fan club...). First of all, given the limitations of touring, she probably doesn't get a whole lot of rehearsal and class time, as would a dancer in a non-touring company. Which limits her ability to work on the basics and to experience different choreographic styles. I think a great deal of growth goes on in the rehearsal studio, so a dancer who is touring month in, month out isn't going to develop in the same way as a dancer who spends the day in the rehearsal studio with a 2 or 3 performances (or less) a week.

Finally, my guess is that as the unquestioned prima, there's probably much less competition and correction that would be healthy. For instance, in a company where roles regularly rotate, with time and space to teach new dancers new roles on a continual basis, a dancer has to be much more on top of his or her game or things will change. And when the advertisement and promotion of a company doesn't revolve around a single dancer, that dancer probably can't get a way with nearly as much. I suspect that no-one's going to tell Kolesnikova to ditch the overly-slow tempo because they need her.

To be fair to Kolesnikova, she has hardly danced at all this season due to illness. I caught her at the end of the tour and found her dancing a trifle tentative after such a long period away from the stage.

As for the slow tempo, it's not slow at all when compared with that other St Petersburg outfit, The Kirov. I recently watched Lopatkina dance a Dying Swan in such hideous slow motion that it wasn't so much a death as a merciful release - for the audience!

Please see attached a story from the Arizona Daily Star about a
company claiming to be the 'ST Petersburg Ballet Theatre' and
promoted by CAMI in the US.
As you may know, the real SPBT has been touring the UK, promoted by
Patricia Murray-Bett at Artsworld UK, not the US.

Also included is a statement from SPBT's website.

If you would like to speak to someone from SPBT or Artsworld UK this
can be arranged.

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